Beer and beef, wine and chocolate, butter and olive oil – all the good stuff is properly represented among the nominees for the annual James Beard Foundation awards, which are given to cookbook authors, food writers, and chefs in numerous categories. The nominees announced today include three of Amazon's Best Books of the Month picks from 2011, including Blood, Bones & Butter, chosen as one of our Best Books of the Year.

American Cooking

• A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen, by Hugh Acheson
• American Flavor, by Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman
• Masala Farm: Stories and Recipes from an Uncommon Life in the Country, by Suvir Saran with Raquel Pelzel and Charlie Burd

Cooking from a Professional Point of View

• The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts, by Meredith Erickson, David McMillan, and Frédéric Morin
• Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook, by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara
• Modernist Cuisine, by Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet

Baking and Dessert

• Baking Style: Art, Craft, Recipes, by Lisa Yockelson
• Cooking with Chocolate: Essential Recipes and Techniques, edited by Frédéric Bau
• Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, by Jeni Britton Bauer

Beverage

• An Ideal Wine: One Generation’s Pursuit of Perfection–and Profit–in California, by David Darlington
• Bitters: A Spirited History of a Classic Cure-all, with Cocktails, Recipes, & Formulas, by Brad Thomas Parsons
• The Oxford Companion to Beer, edited by Garrett Oliver

Writing and Literature 

• Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, by Gabrielle Hamilton
• Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War, by Annia Ciezadlo
• Extra Virginity, by Tom Mueller

Cookbook winners will be announced May 4, along with the Cookbook of the Year. Winners in other categories, including best restaurants and chefs, will be announced May 7. To see nominees in all categories, click here.

In honor of Eric Carle’s classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, today is Very Hungry Caterpillar Day.  Each year there is a theme around Very Hungry Caterpillar Day and for 2012 the theme is “inspiring hungry minds to grow.”   Carle’s books have helped generations of children learn basic concepts like colors and counting, encouraged healthy eating, and inspired kids to grow their imagination. In honor of the day, we have some fun downloadable activities including Caterpillar ABC’s and Counting Fruit–you can find all the Very Hungry Caterpillar Day activities here, under the heading Activities for Your Hungry Reader. 

For over 40 years, The Very Hungry Caterpillar has been a staple on baby’s first bookshelf and seems to be universally loved by those who read it as a child, or who have read it to their own kids. Several of us in the office developed a bit of a crush on this remarkable author/illustrator after watching the video of Carle talking about his inspiration for The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse (you can see it here).   It’s fortunate that Eric Carle’s passion for writing books that teach and excite young readers hasn’t waned in the decades since The Very Hungry Caterpillar first arrived on the scene, and I always think it’s fun to see what people’s favorite titles are. I especially love The Grouchy Ladybug, Mister Seahorse, and The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse.  What are your favorites?

Check out a video for this year’s Very Hungry Caterpillar Day below:

Today the polls are open and kids can begin voting for the 2012 winners of a Children's Choice Book Award (CCBA).  The only national children's book award of its kind, kids across the country can read from the list of finalists in each category (four age groups, plus best illustrator and best author) and vote for the winners.  I think the CCBAs are extra special because they give kids the opportunity to tell us what books they really loved and so far (this is the fifth year) the list of finalists and winners doesn't overlap much, if at all, with the books honored by the American Library Association (Newbery, Caldecott, etc.,) earlier in the year–viva la difference!  Voting ends on May 3, so there is plenty of time to read the books you might not have gotten to yet and still cast your vote for the winners. Without further ado, the nominees for the 2012 Children's Choice Book Awards are (cue the music):

Kindergarten – Grade 2:

• Three Hens and a Peacock
• Bailey
• Zombie in Love
• Dot
• Pirates Don't Take Baths

Grade 3 – Grade 4:

• Bad Kitty Meets the Baby
• Squish #1: Super Amoeba
• Sidekicks
• The Monstrous Book of Monsters
• A Funeral in the Bathroom: and Other School Bathroom Poems

Grade 5 – Grade 6:

• Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog
• Okay for Now
• Bad Island
• Lost and Found: Three by Shaun Tan
• How to Survive Anything: Shark Attack, Lightning, Embarrassing Parents, Pop Quizzes, and Other Perilous Situations

Teen:

• Divergent
• Clockwork Prince
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone
• Passion
• Perfect

And don't forget to vote on the best author of the year and best illustrator of the year from the list of bestselling finalists. In case you are wondering who won these coveted spots last year, the 2011 Author of the Year went to Rick Riordan for The Lost Hero and the 2011 Illustrator of the Year went to David Wiesner for Art & Max.  Check back on May 7 and we'll tell you who won but in the meantime we'd love to hear who you are voting for or if your favorite didn't make the list. –Seira

Last year author Sherri Duskey Rinker published her first picture book, Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, and it has become a slush pile success story, including a spot on our Top 10 Best Picture Books of 2011 list and topping the New York Times’ bestsellers list for Children’s Picture Books in January of this year.  With 5-star reviews from Amazon’s customers and raves from the media, Goodnight has become the little engine that could.

Sherri graciously agreed to write something special for our Omni readers, sharing her inspiration behind the book (calling all Virginia Lee Burton fans!) and her story of getting it published with an illustrator she’d never heard of.  I have a feeling Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site is going to be a staple on kids’ bookshelves for many years to come. –Seira

From the Slush Pile to #1: Realizing my vision. Or not.

I grew up loving picture books.

I can still hear my grandmother’s voice over the sound of the pages turning, the old wind-up Westclox alarm clock ticking away and the sound of traffic rolling down Howard Street. I remember the smell of books mingling with the smell of freshly laundered sheets.

Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House was my favorite, and I obsessed over the whimsically sweet illustrations of that little pink house happily sitting upon a hill covered in daisies.

Inspired, I wanted to be an artist. I also wanted to be a poet, an art teacher, and a journalist. The ping-pong ball of art vs. words ended with a career as a graphic designer. It was a perfect fit: I took pictures and words and put them together in a pretty way.

I met an artist, a photographer. He also had grown up with Virginia Burton: Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel. It was a sign. So I married him. We had two boys and two good excuses for buying dozens (and dozens) of picture books.

Inspired by my youngest son’s tireless (literally!) obsession with trucks, I wrote Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site in stolen moments during the workday and late at night, after the boys were tucked in. And with the words emerged a vision (dare I say “obsession”) for how the book and my trucks would look.

I could see it so clearly: realistic illustrations of trucks superimposed with facial expressions to convey the mood and create the characters. Strong, yet simple graphic elements to create the setting. A bit of realism. A bit of collage. A bit of a grunge to compliment the dirty work of the trucks.  I included the concept illustration with my manuscript and sent it, unsolicited, to Chronicle Books.

When my editor contacted me, three months after I’d sent the manuscript, she was friendly, but also to-the-point: They loved the manuscript (!), and hated (though she used a nicer word) the illustration concept.

Hmm…

One of the reasons that Chronicle was the first (and ultimately only) publisher on my list was that I LOVE their picture books. I appreciate their beauty and high production values. So, I had a choice here: trust, or walk away. I chose trust–with a big dash of fear.

My editor asked if I had any ideas for illustrators. I sent her a dozen names and online portfolios. I’m pretty certain she ignored me. And, they chose Tom Lichtenheld. (Who?)

When I told my editor that I’d never heard of Tom, she quickly emailed a few examples. The first was from Tom’s NYT best-selling book, Duck! Rabbit! I was stunned to see bold, simple shapes and thickly-outlined illustrations. I stared blankly at the screen, feeling my heart sink.

Could this guy even draw a truck?

I spent the next couple of months intently focused on the process of editing and developing the final manuscript. But it was always there, in the back of my mind: What would the book look like? What had I given up?

One evening I received an excited email from my editor with Tom’s first pencil sketch attached.

I wrote back: “I’m scared. I’ll pour a glass of wine and then look at it.”

I held my breath and double-clicked. And there it was: classic, timeless and tender, with just a touch of whimsy. My crane truck, a distant, younger cousin to Mike Mulligan, perhaps? My heart melted. I was won over.

So there it was: nothing like I imagined. But it was better. I’ve come to learn that some of the best things in life–like marriage and motherhood–are like that.

And I could almost feel Mrs. Burton smiling down.

–Sherri Duskey Rinker

If you're sweet on a levitating girl or an invisible boy, then we have the perfect eCards for you. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was one of our favorite books of 2011, and this Valentine's Day, those peculiar children are delivering heart-felt messages in a one-of-a-kind way. Why settle on message-stamped candy hearts, when an image can say so much more?

See all the peculiar Valentine's Day eCards available for free from Quirk Books.

While on tour in support of 420 Characters, one of our Best Books of the Month for December, author and illustrator Lou Beach stopped by Amazon to chat about how a series of Facebook posts becomes a book, what it's like to live in a family of artists, and "the compulsion to create a narrative."

In his debut collection of microfiction, Beach builds tiny worlds inhabited by recurring characters who come to him, he says, in the space between dreaming and waking. We're not the only ones to be captivated by this approach: 420 Characters has been featured in the New York Times and USA Today, as well as (more than once) on NPR.